Seamus Heaney died today
With a simple note; noli timere
-Don’t be afraid-
To his wife, not the world
On a phone
Not scratched in peat
With his father’s spade
A husband’s final words
To the woman he loved
In an ancient language
That shapes and leavens
The English of his poetry
A good man, by all accounts
Who loved all language and
The messages it could carry
A committed sense-maker
Not obfuscator.
He took us to:
The heartland of the ordinary…
A nine- to- five man who had seen poetry
One less to keep the barbarians
From the gate
